Happy Halloween Zeppelin Fans

Rumours of Tour Surfacing.

According to MusicNews.com, Led Zeppelin is ramping up tour preparations:

According to sources, strong rumors suggest that LED ZEPPELIN live dates are being planned for next spring.

A block of dates at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey have been reportedly put on hold for June.

It is also said that merchandise is currently in production in Asia.

As an aside, I have heard that it's an open secret in the concert biz that somebody has attempted to book a 17 day block of dates at Madison Square Garden. How many acts could fill that kind of dates?

h/t CB Music

Happy Halloween Zeppelin Fans

Rumours of Tour Surfacing.

According to MusicNews.com, Led Zeppelin is ramping up tour preparations:

According to sources, strong rumors suggest that LED ZEPPELIN live dates are being planned for next spring.

A block of dates at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey have been reportedly put on hold for June.

It is also said that merchandise is currently in production in Asia.

As an aside, I have heard that it's an open secret in the concert biz that somebody has attempted to book a 17 day block of dates at Madison Square Garden. How many acts could fill that kind of dates?

h/t CB Music

Ritchie Yorke interviews John Paul Jones

Ritchie York, who goes back a long way with Zeppelin, (I have a book by him, The Led Zeppelin Biography, dated 1976) has an interview with John Paul Jones in which it is suggested Jones says - read his lips - no new tour!

The article in the Brisbane Times, Led Zeppelin's Back, features a sit down chat in London with Yorke and Jones. According to Yorke:

Unlike the various other bands currently squeezing superannuation funds from reunion tours, the Zep team (a) doesn't need the money, and (b) values far too deeply the extent of their creative contributions to rock 'n' roll to jeopardise it.

You could reasonably assert that it is the purity of their brand - not tarnished by hasty reunion efforts or other tawdry endeavors - that is responsible for the awesome 20-million on-line enquiries about ticket sales when the November 26 concert was announced.

While there is no direct quote from Jones regarding touring - We will not tour dammit - Jones does discuss how things are progressing:

Well yes, we are pretty excited about this and also a bit daunted...

But we know how to deal with it...

We're totally sure that this is the right thing to do, and we are taking it very seriously...

The only trouble we had at the first rehearsal last week was remembering in some songs 'did it go this way, or was there another chorus?'...

I don't want to be on stage at the Dome thinking like that. I want to be just so familiar with the material - so that we can give a proper performance rather than just remember how this or that song went...

Initially I was invited to join in a memorial concert for Ahmet in New York performing with the likes of Ben E King last January. Then Robert let it be known that he would rather do something for Ahmet in England...

Originally we were going to play the Royal Albert Hall, along with another night with some other acts. Then the Royal Albert was deemed too small and it moved to the Dome...

At first, we would be playing 40 minutes, then it went to an hour. I was a bit reluctant along the way because I wasn't sure whether I wanted to part of getting that whole circus on the road again. But I was persuaded to try out a rehearsal to see if we really wanted to play together...

That first rehearsal this month was just amazing, it took us back to that first meeting in '68. So we decided to go ahead and we will be putting in some serious rehearsal sessions right up until the show itself.

While Yorke is a credible Zeppelin source, nowhere in that article does Jones say "No Tour," although that by no means suggests he didn't say it.

Ritchie Yorke interviews John Paul Jones

Ritchie York, who goes back a long way with Zeppelin, (I have a book by him, The Led Zeppelin Biography, dated 1976) has an interview with John Paul Jones in which it is suggested Jones says - read his lips - no new tour!

The article in the Brisbane Times, Led Zeppelin's Back, features a sit down chat in London with Yorke and Jones. According to Yorke:

Unlike the various other bands currently squeezing superannuation funds from reunion tours, the Zep team (a) doesn't need the money, and (b) values far too deeply the extent of their creative contributions to rock 'n' roll to jeopardise it.

You could reasonably assert that it is the purity of their brand - not tarnished by hasty reunion efforts or other tawdry endeavors - that is responsible for the awesome 20-million on-line enquiries about ticket sales when the November 26 concert was announced.

While there is no direct quote from Jones regarding touring - We will not tour dammit - Jones does discuss how things are progressing:

Well yes, we are pretty excited about this and also a bit daunted...

But we know how to deal with it...

We're totally sure that this is the right thing to do, and we are taking it very seriously...

The only trouble we had at the first rehearsal last week was remembering in some songs 'did it go this way, or was there another chorus?'...

I don't want to be on stage at the Dome thinking like that. I want to be just so familiar with the material - so that we can give a proper performance rather than just remember how this or that song went...

Initially I was invited to join in a memorial concert for Ahmet in New York performing with the likes of Ben E King last January. Then Robert let it be known that he would rather do something for Ahmet in England...

Originally we were going to play the Royal Albert Hall, along with another night with some other acts. Then the Royal Albert was deemed too small and it moved to the Dome...

At first, we would be playing 40 minutes, then it went to an hour. I was a bit reluctant along the way because I wasn't sure whether I wanted to part of getting that whole circus on the road again. But I was persuaded to try out a rehearsal to see if we really wanted to play together...

That first rehearsal this month was just amazing, it took us back to that first meeting in '68. So we decided to go ahead and we will be putting in some serious rehearsal sessions right up until the show itself.

While Yorke is a credible Zeppelin source, nowhere in that article does Jones say "No Tour," although that by no means suggests he didn't say it.

Raising Sand: Review

Reviews I have read keep calling the Robert Plant Alison Krauss collaboration an odd pairing. Inevitably they site Krauss as Bluegrass, Plant as rock or "bluesy rock" as one review put it. These comparisons miss one important point: Led Zeppelin had a strong folk element. Plant is an excellent folk singer, and it is in that folk voice that Raising Sand, the new Robert Plant/Alison Krass CD that's released today, works best.

Influenced with folk, rock and roll and country, Raising Sand is a collection of interesting and well chosen songs. But the real surprise is how well these two voices work together. As I mentioned off the top, conventional wisdom is that this is an odd paring. Yet somebody heard something between these two, because their voices harmonically combine beautifully to create a unique sound.

For Plant fans it is worth noting that this may be his best effort in a while, certainly superior to the previous Strange Sensation efforts.

Best songs: Stick With Me Baby for harmony between the two voices and Rich Woman and Fortune Teller for Plant vehicles. The CD finishes off with duet Your Long Journey, which puts Plant back in his Led Zeppelin III saddle, and Krauss in her home territory, with the result of the best song of the album.

Overall, a good CD that when I first heard about it I thought would be a pass, but definitely isn't.

Requisite reunion concert connection: The two voices work together so well, in the right way, that it wouldn't be inappropriate to have Alison Krauss join Zeppelin onstage at the 02 to perform Battle of Evermore - certainly better her than John Paul Jones. More on that idea on
a later post.

Raising Sand: Review

Reviews I have read keep calling the Robert Plant Alison Krauss collaboration an odd pairing. Inevitably they site Krauss as Bluegrass, Plant as rock or "bluesy rock" as one review put it. These comparisons miss one important point: Led Zeppelin had a strong folk element. Plant is an excellent folk singer, and it is in that folk voice that Raising Sand, the new Robert Plant/Alison Krass CD that's released today, works best.

Influenced with folk, rock and roll and country, Raising Sand is a collection of interesting and well chosen songs. But the real surprise is how well these two voices work together. As I mentioned off the top, conventional wisdom is that this is an odd paring. Yet somebody heard something between these two, because their voices harmonically combine beautifully to create a unique sound.

For Plant fans it is worth noting that this may be his best effort in a while, certainly superior to the previous Strange Sensation efforts.

Best songs: Stick With Me Baby for harmony between the two voices and Rich Woman and Fortune Teller for Plant vehicles. The CD finishes off with duet Your Long Journey, which puts Plant back in his Led Zeppelin III saddle, and Krauss in her home territory, with the result of the best song of the album.

Overall, a good CD that when I first heard about it I thought would be a pass, but definitely isn't.

Requisite reunion concert connection: The two voices work together so well, in the right way, that it wouldn't be inappropriate to have Alison Krauss join Zeppelin onstage at the 02 to perform Battle of Evermore - certainly better her than John Paul Jones. More on that idea on
a later post.

Zeppelin: Coming to a Mobile Phone Near You.

I start this blog by blowing my own horn, sort of. Yesterday, on another blog I write, I made this observation:

Led Zeppelin... one of the last bands to make their back catalogue downloadable, this week announced that they would begin to do so.

Hopefully this means an end to those Kashmir polyphonic ring tones and we can get some real Zeppelin on our cell phones.

Today comes word that this is exactly what will happen:

Hot on the heels of the news that Led Zeppelin will make its vast music catalog available online, starting with an exclusive U.S. mobile agreement with Verizon Wireless, comes word that O2 has snagged the rights to offer the catalog to cell phone customers in Britain.

Like Verizon Wireless, O2 will offer Zeppelin ringtones and other mobile features. Customers who download Zeppelin ring tone will be entered into a drawing for one of six tickets the company is giving away to the sold-out show—one of the most highly anticipated rock concerts in years.

Move over Foo Fighters, my cell phone's getting A Whole Lotta Love.

Zeppelin: Coming to a Mobile Phone Near You.

I start this blog by blowing my own horn, sort of. Yesterday, on another blog I write, I made this observation:

Led Zeppelin... one of the last bands to make their back catalogue downloadable, this week announced that they would begin to do so.

Hopefully this means an end to those Kashmir polyphonic ring tones and we can get some real Zeppelin on our cell phones.

Today comes word that this is exactly what will happen:

Hot on the heels of the news that Led Zeppelin will make its vast music catalog available online, starting with an exclusive U.S. mobile agreement with Verizon Wireless, comes word that O2 has snagged the rights to offer the catalog to cell phone customers in Britain.

Like Verizon Wireless, O2 will offer Zeppelin ringtones and other mobile features. Customers who download Zeppelin ring tone will be entered into a drawing for one of six tickets the company is giving away to the sold-out show—one of the most highly anticipated rock concerts in years.

Move over Foo Fighters, my cell phone's getting A Whole Lotta Love.

The official Header

Here's the official blog header, which is a cut of the fourth floor of the Physical Graffiti cover. This floor was cut from the album cover to square up the building.

The official Header

Here's the official blog header, which is a cut of the fourth floor of the Physical Graffiti cover. This floor was cut from the album cover to square up the building.